Liu Yalou only took 29 hours to force Fu Zuoyi into a desperate situation
On December 24, 1948, Zhangjiakou was liberated. It was impossible for the Kuomintang army to retreat west to Suiyuan, trapped in the Beiping, Tianjin, and Tanggu areas, but it was still possible for them to escape from the sea. To this end, Chairman Mao instructed the Northeast Field Army to encircle and annihilate the enemies in Tanggu and Tianjin as soon as possible, control Haikou, cut off and close the enemy's retreat route, and further isolate the enemy in Beiping. The Northeast Field Army originally planned to destroy the enemy in Tanggu first, but the back of Tanggu was near the sea, the terrain was open, and the rivers and salt pans were dense, which could not cut off the enemy's retreat from behind, nor did it facilitate the troops to move and deploy in the front. So he changed his plans and first besieged Tianjin.
Subsequently, the Northeast Field Army set up a Command Post on the Tianjin Front with Liu Yalou as its commander-in-chief. The 1st, 2nd, 7th, 8th, and 9th Columns, the Special Forces Unit, the 17th Division of the 6th Column, and the 34th Division of the 12th Column, with a total of 340,000 men from 22 divisions, equipped with more than 538 large-caliber artillery pieces and more than 40 tanks and armored vehicles, surrounded Tianjin and made preparations for siege.
Tianjin is the second largest city in North China. The city is lined with high-rise buildings, rivers and rivers, and the terrain is complex, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The Kuomintang army spent a lot of money to build a large number of fortifications here, building more than 380 large bunkers and thousands of small bunkers. Walls were built along the city, moats were dug, and deer, barbed wire and mines were set up everywhere. Many fortified strongholds were built outside the city. The Tianjin garrison consisted of more than 130,000 people in 10 divisions of the 86th Army and the 62nd Army, all under the command of Chen Changjie, commander of the Tianjin Garrison. Chen Changjie boasted that Tianjin was "impregnable".
In early January 1949, the Northeast Field Army cleared the outer strongholds of Tianjin and completed arduous and complicated preparations for the siege. In order to delay the attack time of our army, Chen Changjie sent people out of the city to negotiate. Liu Yalou advised Chen Changjie to lay down his weapons and carry out peaceful liberation, and ordered his vanguard troops to leave the city at 12 o'clock on January 13 at the latest, otherwise our army would begin to attack the city on the 14th. Chen Changjie tried to rely on strong fortifications to hold firm, refused advice, and the peaceful liberation of Tianjin was impossible.
In the early morning of January 14, the fog over Tianjin was thick, and the position was exceptionally silent, which was the silence before the vicious battle. At 10 o'clock, like a thunderbolt on a sunny day, more than 500 cannons suddenly roared in unison, thousands of shells poured on the positions of the Kuomintang army, one after another open and dark forts were blown over, barbed wire and deer were lifted one after another, and large sections of the city wall were collapsed. The Battle of Tianjin began.
According to the characteristics of Tianjin's long, narrow north and south and strong enemy forces in the north, strong enemy fortifications in the south, and weak enemy troops and fortifications in the central region, the siege troops adopted the tactics of advancing east-west, blocking the waist, first facing the south and then the north, first dividing and then annihilating, eating meat first and then gnawing on bones, and placing the main direction of attack in the middle of the urban area. The specific arrangements are: the 1st and 2nd columns are equipped with 89 ground guns, 15 anti-aircraft guns, 15 tanks, and 1 engineer regiment to attack from west to east, which is the first main offensive direction; the 7th and 8th columns are equipped with 67 ground guns, 8 anti-aircraft guns, 10 tanks, and 2 battalions of engineers, attacking from east to west, as the second main offensive direction; the 9th Column and the 12th Column 34th Division are equipped with 24 ground guns and 14 armored vehicles, assisting from south to north; and the 8th Column's independent 4th Division. The 2nd Column's Independent 7th Division and the Field Army Headquarters Guard Regiment feinted in the north; the 17th Division of the 6th Column was used as the general reserve for the campaign.
At the same time as the artillery fire was rapidly attacked, the engineer units, under the cover of artillery and tanks, quickly carried out blasting and demining, and used boat bridges, reed bridges and other river crossing equipment to build pontoon bridges on the moat to open up passages. At about 11:00 a.m., three assault groups in the east, west, and south broke through the city defense from 9 lots. The "Red 3rd Company", a sharp knife company of the 4th Regiment of the 2nd Division of the 1st Column, jumped out of the trench first when the artillery fire of our army was about to extend and shoot, scrambled, bravely attacked, and broke through the city wall in one fell swoop. The Kuomintang army organized a fierce counterattack, and the "Red 3 Company" engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat at the head of the city, charged and killed, repelled the enemy's counterattack, eliminated the enemy at the breakthrough, and rushed towards the city. During the fight, the "Red 3 Company" suffered more than half of the casualties, and the company commander Shi Dehong was heroically sacrificed.
After the 1st Company of the 70th Regiment of the 24th Division of the 8th Column launched an attack from the east, it broke through the civil rights gate in only 3 minutes. The flag bearer Zhong Yingen planted the big red flag of "killing and opening the civil rights gate" granted to the 1st company by the division commander before the war to the head of the civil rights gate. A cannonball flew in, the red flag was blown down, and Zhong Yingen's legs were injured. He crouched down next to the red flag and trembled with all his strength to hold up the red flag. Another shell flew in, the flagpole was broken, and Zhong Yingen was seriously injured again and passed out unconscious. When he woke up, he crawled to the red flag in severe pain, grabbed the flagpole with both hands, propped his elbows on the ground, and put the red flag up again. The comrades-in-arms rushed over, took the red flag, and firmly planted it at the head of the civil rights gate.
After the breakthrough was opened, the troops, under the cover of artillery fire and tanks, marched straight into the city from three directions and engaged in fierce street battles. Commanders at all levels command from the front. Cao Lihuai, deputy commander of the 1st Column, known as Zhang Fei, pulled up He Dongsheng, commander of the 2nd Division, and personally took a tank to open the way for the infantry. Cao Lihuai saw that the infantry in front of him attacked a building, but several times failed to work, so he ordered the driver: "Crash! "The driver pushed the handle, turned the muzzle of the gun to the rear, drove full horsepower, and crashed into the building." With a muffled bang, the building slammed into a large hole. The infantry rushed into the cave and destroyed the enemy.
Tianjin's streets are complex and difficult to discern, and the position of the troops is uneven after the depth is expanded. Cadres and fighters carry forward the spirit of independent combat, rush wherever there is an enemy, and directly insert themselves into the city center in the general direction. At 5 o'clock on the 15th, the main offensive force of the east-west attack met at Jintang Bridge in the city center, and Tianjin was cut off. The Nationalist army was in chaos, and its defense system basically collapsed. After the Jintang Bridge met the division, the troops immediately divided their troops to the south and north to surround and annihilate the enemy. The 6th Company of the 17th Regiment of the 6th Division of the 2nd Column encountered an enemy company under the cover of 3 armored vehicles while advancing south of the city. Enemy armored vehicles rampaged, and two demolition men of the company were killed one after another. Company Commander Tie Zhanshan was furious and grabbed the explosive canister and threw himself at the enemy armored vehicle. With a loud "boom", the first armored vehicle was destroyed, and Tie Zhanshan was heroically sacrificed. The whole company bravely attacked and annihilated the enemy in front of them.
Xing Chunfu, deputy platoon commander of the 6th Company of the 1st Division, 1st Regiment of the 1st Column, led several soldiers to break into the basement of the Tianjin Garrison Headquarters in one fell swoop and captured 7 general-level officers, including Chen Changjie, commander of the Tianjin Garrison. The defenders lost control, completely collapsed, and were annihilated. At 15:00 on the 15th, the battle ended in victory and Tianjin, an important industrial city in North China, was liberated. The "Tianjin fortress" city defense painstakingly operated by the Kuomintang army only lasted 29 hours before it collapsed. The Northeast Field Army annihilated more than 130,000 enemy personnel, captured 28 officers of general rank, captured 1,648 guns of various kinds, 3,553 light and heavy machine guns, and more than 54,000 guns of various kinds. After the liberation of Tianjin, more than 50,000 defenders of Tanggu were afraid of being annihilated, and on the 16th, they fled by boat from the sea. The 12th Column pursued and annihilated more than 3,400 people behind the enemy's rear and occupied Tanggu on the 17th.
After the liberation of Tianjin, the North China Suppression Headquarters defending Beiping and its two corps headquarters and 25 divisions, together with local troops totaling 250,000 people, were already under the heavy encirclement of the People's Liberation Army and were completely in a desperate situation. Fu Zuoyi originally regarded the defense of Tianjin as a trump card in his hand as a bargaining chip with the People's Liberation Army at the negotiating table, believing that "only by playing well can we negotiate well" and "there is a way to firmly hold it." Unexpectedly, Tianjin was lost in only 29 hours, and at this time, in addition to laying down his weapons and accepting the adaptation, Fu Zuoyi had no second way to go.
On January 21, Su Jing, a representative of the Northeast Field Army's Frontline Command, and Wang Kejun and Cui Zaizhi, representatives of Fu Zuoyi, signed the "Agreement on the Peaceful Settlement of The Settlement of The Problem in Peiping" on behalf of Fu Zuoyi. From January 22 to 31, the Beiping defenders successively drove out of the city to listen to the reorganization. On the 31st, the 4th Column of the Northeast Field Army entered Peiping to take over the defense. At this point, the Battle of Pingjin ended in victory. On February 3, the People's Liberation Army held a grand ceremony to enter Beiping, which was warmly welcomed by the people of the city. Beiping, the ancient capital of the millennium, has gained a new life!